There were heated scenes in parliament today when Arts Minister David Templeman didn’t hold back when speaking about the Liberal party’s candidate for the seat of Albany.
“What a dickhead!” Templeman said under parliamentary privilege. Shortly afterwards he formally withdrew the remark saying it was “unparliamentary”.
Dr Thomas Brough who serves on the Albany City Council made headlines earlier this year when he suggested that the plus symbol in LGBTIQA+ could mean an acceptance of “minor attracted people”. The comments were made during the city’s annual Pride Festival.
Dr Brough was preselected to be the Liberal party’s candidate for the state election not long after he sparked the controversy. Dr Brough has since voiced his support for the Keep Children Safe Albany organisation which is calling for sex education books to be removed from the local library, and also raised concerns about underage twerking and role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons.
Rebecca Stephens, the Labor member for Albany, raised concern over the treatment staff at Albany’s public library since the campaign against library books was launched.
“The Keeping Children Safe campaign was designed to create division in my community, sacrificing not only the library staff at their altar to their hateful ideologies, but also creating chaos for the City of Albany, which runs the library, by forcing a special electors meeting and stacking it with its followers in order to force the City of Albany to restrict books held at the library.” Stephens said.
The local MP said the group behind the campaign “is a strange coalition of former One Nation candidates, Sovereign Citizen Movement members, the Australian Christian Lobby and the endorsed Liberal candidate for Albany, Councillor Thomas Brough.”
Responding to Stephens statement, the arts minister said it was important that young people had access to sex education materials and the actions triggered by the campaign were both “appalling” and “ridiculous”.
After withdrawing his comment where he appeared to label Dr Brough “a dickhead”, Templeman said the leaders of party’s who have members connected to the Leep Children Safe Albany campaign should really be getting on the phone to their members.
“The leaders of those parties that are responsible need to have a good, hard look at themselves.” he said.
Liberal leader Libby Mettam refuses to say if she’s spoken to Dr Thomas Brough
Later in the day Liberal leader Libby Metham repeatedly refused to say if she had spoken to Dr Brough about his statements, or if she was concerned his campaign might deter voters from supporting the Liberal team at the state election.
Mettam told reporters that Dr Brough’s comments were not representative of those held by the party.
The party leader repeatedly told members of the media that her candidates would be focused on the important issues including the cost of living, health care and law and order.
OUTinPerth approached Dr Brough for comment.
